Theme park staff sacked for taking advantage of faulty ATM

Everyone dreams of an ATM that dishes out free cash. Unfortunately for some staff at Luna Park the dream came true but then turned sour with the help of some photographic evidence.

17 staff at Luna Park, theme park in Sydney have been sacked after taking advantage of an ATM machine onsite that was dispensing $50 notes in the place of $20 notes.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that news of the fault spread quickly among employees, and some staff returned to the ATM multiple times to empty their bank accounts.

The machine’s camera was working fine, though taking photographs of each employee as some returned repeatedly to withdraw money.

Luna Park management used the photo’s to identify the culprits and about 17 staff were sacked on Friday and escorted out, one by one, by security guards.

Before they left, they were asked to sign documents promising to repay the money, but police were not informed.

“It spread like wildfire.” said a now former employee. “One person told one person, who told one person. People were keeping it on the down-low; they would only tell their closest mates. To be honest, it surprised me that there weren’t more people doing it.”

“A few retail staff emptied their entire bank accounts [but] most were just doing a one-off.”

The ATM company iCash Australia, owns and maintains the cash dispenser at Luna Park but does not supply the cash. The cash in the machine is loaded by Luna Park security staff who in this case managed to load the $50 notes in the section where the $20 notes were supposed to be, and vice versa.

iCash’s chief executive, Kim Stewart said some individuals had performed “multiple transactions” after realising the error.

“From what we understand, most of them were staff,” he said.

Luna Park management were not making any comment at this stage. All this free publicity and they have got nothing to say?